THE CASES OF EDDIE DRAKE PART THREE:
THE PALEY CENTER JOINS THE FUN
by Michael Shonk

Before beginning, you may wish to go back to the first two in this series of articles about one of the more mysterious private eye series in early TV, The Cases of Eddie Drake. Part One is here, and Part Two followed soon thereafter.

After these two posts appeared, I asked various archives for information about the series. David Bushman of the Paley Center for Media Arts responded they had nine episodes and offered me the chance to watch them. To this old researcher it was like getting a free ticket to Disneyland, but I was unable to go. Mr. Bushman asked me to send in my questions and someone there would watch the episodes and try to find some answers.

I am amazed by the effort Mr. Bushman and the Paley Center put into answering questions about a show few remember and even fewer care about. If you have any interest in saving old television I can’t think of a better place to support or be a member. Please, check out their website at PaleyCenter.org.

The episodes were in no condition to view, so techs at the Paley Center have been hard at work making viewable digital copies. This done, Mr. Bushman watched the following episodes: “The Brass Key” (episode one), “Hush, Hush”, “Murder By Proxy”, “Murder in Three-Quarter Time”, “Sleep Well, Angel”, “The Judas Coin”, and “A Hole in the Head” (all with Patricia Morison). He also watched “Murder Ad Lib” and “The Man Who Was Nobody” (with Lynne Roberts).

With “Shooting The Works” (new link), this leaves only three episodes still missing.

While the question of when did Eddie Drake first air remains unknown, we have learned more about the series.

Copyright date on the Patricia Morison’s episodes is 1948. The copyright on the Lynne Roberts’ episodes is 1951. Copyright holder for both is IMPPRO. There is no mention on copyright screen of CBS, DuMont, or NBC.

“Were there any changes to the standing sets? Was Eddie’s rare 1948 Davis Divan in all episodes?” It is unlikely the sets for a series shelved for three years would have survived.

Eddie’s rare car was in all the episodes except the first “The Brass Key”. This makes “Shooting the Works” episode two since Eddie mentions he has bought a new car.

Amazingly, Mr. Bushman took the time out to map Eddie’s office in Morison and Roberts’ episodes. The water cooler, the map, the window with the fake brick wall showing through, the bookshelf, and the rest were the same. The most noticeable change was the set looks better in the Roberts’ episodes.

There were differences. The theme song and opening credits changed. Roberts’ episodes had a fancier title card featuring a full body silhouette of a man in a suit (drawing) in lower right corner of the screen his shadow cast under the letters of the title.

Morison’s episodes had her and Haggerty deliver the credits at the end, while Roberts’ episodes credits were graphics upfront.

“Any changes in the credits?” The chances the exact same people would return after three years is unbelievable.

The same people but with newly credited help. Jason James wrote all episodes seen, but the Roberts’ two had an additional credit for additional dialog by Robert Lehman. Harlan Thompson and Herbert Strock produced all episodes with Paul Garrison directing, Morison’s episodes had photography by Guy Roe OR Charles Trego. Roberts’ episodes had photography by Guy Roe and Lucien Androit. Strock was credited alone in the Morison’s episodes while he AND Ed Taylor got screen credit in the Roberts’ episodes. Assistant director was Leo Pepin then Leo Peppin (unknown why he added another p to his name) and Chuck Wasserman.

“Any differences in the two female characters?”

Both were psychiatrists. There is no mention of Dr. Gayle (Morison) or the book in the two Roberts’ episodes seen. The relationship between Drake and the two remains much the same. Cop Lt. Walsh is played by Theodore von Eltz in all episodes.

So what have we learned? For one, a major clue in the Producer credits.

Searching Billboard (at Google books), the August 13, 1949 issue, regarding the Ed Wynn Show for CBS, there was this: “Harlan Thompson named yesterday (6) as show’s associate producer. Thompson is a former veepee of IMPRRO (sic) Inc with film and Broadway musical comedy production experience.”

IMPPRO was still in production in 1952, but without Harlan Thompson. Herbert L. Strock was now President of the company.

If IMPPRO, the copyright holder, was still active, why would DuMont need to film the final four episodes? If DuMont did film the final four (as is currently believed), why were the thirteen episodes shown on WENR-TV starting September 7, 1951 when DuMont did not air Eddie Drake until March 6, 1952? If filmed in 1951, why is Harlan Thompson credited as producer when he left the company before August 1949?

Now what do we know and what can we deduce?

Billboard magazine from 1948 reported five episodes of Eddie Drake were delivered to CBS, with four more in editing. The filming of the final four episodes was scheduled for November 17, 1948.

Suddenly, Patricia Morison was offered the lead in Broadway play Kiss Me, Kate. She is gone. Deduction: This is why IMPPRO had to recast the part for the final four episodes to complete the order CBS had paid $300,000 for.

Current belief says CBS tossed the nine and never aired them. Why? $300,000 in 1948 is a great deal of money to just toss away. And why copyright the episodes in 1948?

If so many confirmed clues point to the final four being filmed in 1948-49, why are those episodes copyrighted 1951?

How the Sherlock Holmes do I know? But I can guess.

The improved look of the series probably came from a sudden increase in the budget. Where did IMPPRO get the money?

During the delay to recast, did CBS TV Film Sales copyright and shop the nine episodes around? Was the early sales of the first nine episodes where IMPPRO got the money to increase the budget?

But if the Roberts’ episodes were filmed in 1948-49, why weren’t they copyrighted then?

Deduction: something went wrong. Perhaps the sales were not good enough for CBS, so it didn’t bother to copyright the final four and shelved the entire series.

Until 1951 when there was a growing demand for TV Film syndicated series. CBS dusted off Cases of Eddie Drake, copyrighted the Roberts’ episodes, and sold them in syndication.

I remain convinced Eddie was on the air somewhere in 1949, but until I can prove it:

THE CASES OF EDDIE DRAKE (Syndicated) 1951. Created and written by Jason James. With additional dialog for few episodes by Robert Lehman. Produced by Harlan Thompson and Herbert L. Strock. Directed by Paul Garrison.

19 Responses to “THE CASES OF EDDIE DRAKE, PART THREE: THE PALEY CENTER JOINS THE FUN, By Michael Shonk.”

– If memory serves, Lucien Andriot (I believe that’s the correct spelling) is the inventor of process photography (aka rear-projection or back-projection). Would there happen to be examples of this technique seen in the Roberts episodes that would not be seen in the Morison episodes?

– Leo Pepin/Peppin: I believe this may be an example of a typo. Often you’ll see variant spellings of names in credit crawls simply because a secretary wasn’t listening carefully during dictation, or possibly couldn’t make out a contractee’s handwriting.
I remember Leo Pepin as having been a production executive on Ozzie & Harriet for many years, so that’s probably the correct spelling.

– It seems from the available evidence that Eddie Drake had two separate production cycles, the first 9 (Morison), then the last 4 (Roberts), with some undetermined gap between, most likely due to the cast change. This would account for the separate sets of tech credits.
I’ve a few episodes of the old Dick Tracy teleseries with Ralph Byrd, which also had two separate production cycles, about a year apart. Each cycle had completely diffrent credits, but one episode seemed to combine credits from both cycles, indicating an episode that was started in one cycle, and completed later, for whatever reason.

– Thirteen episodes were the absolute minimum needed for any kind of sale, network or syndicated. It also seems that CBS, NBC, and DuMont were only involved as potential buyers, with no real say in the production themselves.
Could any or all of the above be right?
(If so – hurray for me!
If not – forget it.)

I have no idea about Lucien Andriot. I have not seen the episodes. I am not sure Mr. Bushman would remember. And if you have seen the lone available episodes you would know how cruel it would be to make him watch it again.

I agree with your Pepin/ Peppin theory.

The credits upgrade came with the set upgrade. I took it to mean the same group did both, but could afford help with the final four. We have found Thompson had left the company before August 49. He was involved in other things besides ED WYNN, he worked as a CBS executive, he wrote a musical that toured, and in 52 he was producing TV-film with another man. Especially since they did change the credits, I don’t see how the second batch could have been filmed after August 49.

You are right about the magic of the number 13 for syndication. But was that true in 1948 when syndication was just beginning? How many TV Film series were there in 1948? From memory of my research trail I want to say three, but Mike, you probably could answer that better than me. Also could CBS try to pre-sell the 13 using 9 with four more on the way? And find no interest?

IMPPRO and CBS TV-Film Sales each owned fifty percent of EDDIE. IMPPRO was paid to film the episodes and deliver them to CBS. This is why CBS TV Film Sales was still syndicating EDDIE in 1955 and maybe after.

Again, anyone is free to correct me since I wasn’t there. But TV-Film in those days was another word for syndication. In 1948 CBS was far more interested in developing their color process for television than the business of syndication. But CBS was the first of the networks to jump on the syndication bandwagon in 1951 or 52.

I can see all thirteen being shelved if no one wanted to buy them. But why copyright some and not all?

What is the history of the CBS TV-Film Sales unit? Did they stop buying TV Film series after EDDIE in 1948 and start up again in the 50’s?

I remain confused about everything but one. DuMont did not film the final four episodes.

To answer my own question about the history of CBS TV-Film Sales, I went back and looked. CBS TV-Film Sales was created as its own unit of CBS in February 1952. They had several programs they were all ready selling. EDDIE’S 13 episodes were among GENE AUTRY, RANGE RIDER and others (with FILES OF JEFFREY JONES “on tap”).

Could CBS not being able to sell EDDIE, tossed them in the closet and got out of the business until 1950 with GENE AUTRY?

That could answer many of the remaining questions except the first air date.

There are those of us for whom TV has always been a fact of life, and we took it for granted from the start.
Here in Chicago, by the time I was born in September 1950, there were four stations on the air, one for each network; the only American cities with more were New York and Los Angeles.
One of my 1951 TV Forecasts has a map showing all the stations that were operating at the time in the entire country. I wish I’d brought it with me to give you the exact count, but if it was as many as fifty stations total, that would be a lot. And this is about the time that the coast-to-coast coaxial cable went into operation.
The point here would be that if Eddie Drake went into production as early as 1948, its producers were really rolling the dice. That’s even before the East-to-Midwest cable hooked up, so network tv was out of the question; local stations with limited budgeting for live productions and lots of time to fill were the only potential customers.
I believe that those who produced film shows for tv that early were doing so as a future investment. The convential wisdom of the time was that TV would always be a ‘live’ medium, with film merely used as filler when needed; the “smart money” scoffed at the notion that people would actually watch a filmed episode of anything more than once.
Thirteen became the standard number of an episode order for the simplest of reasons: thirteen weeks is one quarter of a calendar year. In those early TV days, that would be considered planning ahead: thirteen episodes, repeated once each, would get you through half a year, before you had to come up with something else – unless you thought your audience might sit still for a third or even fourth run, which would get you through a whole year. Ultimately, tv film makers went with twenty-six episodes, repeated once each, with more added in if popularity warranted.
Most of what you’ve printed here indicates that CBS TV Film Sales functioned more as a wholesaler than a producer. The shows you’ve mentioned were all, as best as I recall, independent productions (like Gene Autry’s stable of shows). Based on what you’ve written, IMPPRO sounds like an independent producer, with CBS’s involvement strictly limited to selling – and NBC and DuMont’s limited to buying (as WENR in Chicago, an ABC station, bought in 1951).
During these early TV days, scheduling was almost always catch-as-catch-can, even at the network level. That was how film shows gained as much traction as they did early on, and also how they proved to have a shelf life beyond what their creators ever expected. Look at us – we’re talking about a low-cost detective show made over 60 years ago, and we couldn’t be more buzzed about it if it had been made last year.

A slightly off-topic aside:
I always thought that the longest gap between a series being made and finally getting on the air was Whispering Smith, Audie Murphy’s only TV series, which was filmed in 1959, but didn’t get on the air until 1962, when NBC used it as a summer replacement. TV Guide carried an interview with Murphy, who was worried that the show might yet become a hit, even that late in the game; he hadn’t enjoyed making it,and hoped he wouldn’t have to start up again after so long a layoff.
One of Smith‘s regular cast members, character actor Sam Buffington, died midway through the production cycle, which didn’t help Murphy’s enthusiasm any for continuing the project. As it is, Smith, a Western with an expected amount of violence, got on the air just in time to coincide with Senate hearings about violence on TV, which meant that Murphy, who thought that he was done with it all, had to defend it against Sen. Pastore.
By today’s standards, of course, Whispering Smith probably plays like Lamp Unto My Feet. Down the line, I’m planning on getting the DVD set to see for myself.

Michael, thanks for your kind words about the Paley Center. A couple of follow-up points: Andriot is indeed the correct spelling. The Pepin/Peppin discrepancy doesn’t strike me as much of a mystery at all — just a very amusing typo, as Mike Doran proposes. Mike, I would be happy to look for examples of rear-projection in the Roberts episodes, provided you instruct me on how to identify it. I can’t tell you how impressed I am by all the research I am witnessing on this blog. Keep up the great work, guys.

If the CITY OF ANGELS you’re looking for is the TV series with Wayne Rogers, you can buy a complete set from online dealers for less than $20. Just google [“city of angels” dvd wayne rogers] and several sellers will come up.

I can’t and won’t recommend any of them, but the picture quality can’t be worse than some of the stuff that’s on YouTube.

Back projection (or rear projection, or more formally “process photography”) was used for scenes where characters are supposed to be outdoors, but the scene can’t be filmed that way for one reason or another. It was used most often when characters were riding in a car or train, and you saw scenery in the windows flashing by behind them. Also when they’re supposed to be in Paris or London or somewhere that production couldn’t afford to go, so they ran stock footage on a screen and the actors would stand in front and say “Here we are in London” or wherever.
Maybe the most notorious example was in Way Out West, when Laurel and Hardy do their famous dance while a whole streetful of townspeople behind them don’t notice them. They don’t notice because they’re all stock footage being projected behind Stan and Ollie.
Anyone who’s watched movies and tv as long as we have has seen this a thousand times or more. Now you know what it’s called.
You’re welcome.

I should have remember that due to my recent increase in buying old TV series, but I was just thinking range of time. Because of Netflix, etc it is generally easy to find new TV series on DVD but it harder the older the series is (with some exception). But even then it is easier than finding some of the shows of the fifties.

CHARLIE WILD survives in only a few places. Even the Paley Center does not have a copy of FILES OF JEFFREY JONES. But it gives some of us a chance to play Sherlock Holmes of forgotten television.

For whatever it is worth: We (the Paley Center) do have five episodes of “Charlie Wild” and three episodes of the Cannell-Huggins series “City of Angels”(the three-parter that kicked off the series, titled “The November Plan”). I remember “Angels” being a hugely disappointing show, but Cannell’s work was always so uneven anyway. Michael is right that we are “Jeffrey Jones”-less. I will have to check into the back-projection question when I get a free moment.

David, am I correct copyright problems limit the Paley Center’s ability to show the episodes on the internet or release them on DVD?

Of course if I really wanted to challenge everyone I would mention two sitcoms from the 80s, GOOD TIME HARRY and OPEN ALL NIGHT. Find them. Both of Steve Gordon (ARTHUR) TV series, THE PRACTICE (starring Danny Thomas) and GOOD TIME HARRY, have been virtually forgotten. Jay Tarses’ shows are hard to find. DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD is on YouTube, SLAP MAXWELL, BUFFALO BILL might exist somewhere, but OPEN ALL NIGHT has disappeared completely…for now.

Yes, Michael, all about rights….Regarding Tarses, Buffalo Bill — most famous for the so-called abortion episode — is available at Netflix, since we recently did an event here at the Paley Center with Geena Davis, and I needed to do some primary research on the show. Speaking of rare Tarses, don’t forget the very short-lived 1993 noir parody “Black Tie Affair,” with Kate Capshaw. I too can’t find the radio version of Charlie Wild, but here’s a good website for audio noir, though you probably know of it already: http://audionoir.com/.

I have to admit I was unaware of BLACK TIE AFFAIR and have added it to my wish list. I have a gap in my TV viewing from the 80s through early 90s. At the time I was living in the Valley working 60 hours a week to pay the rent, taking an occasional course at AFI or Valley State, and visiting the Paley Center events. I miss those days.

From BROADCASTING February 27, 1950
“CBS has purchased TV rights to IMPPRO Inc’s (Hollywood) CASES OF EDDIE DRAKE, half-hour film series. Network said to have originally paid firm $97,000 to produce series of 13 films, with arrangement to share TV rights with film company. Present package includes nine films as firm unable to complete remaining four because of commitments of Pat Morrision (sic) feminine lead, with New York show KISS ME KATE. CBS will pay IMPPRO $4000 additional for all TV rights with latter retaining original $97,000 outlay and relieved of responsibility of completing last four films. Film firm retains theatre and foreign distribution rights.”

From this we can learn, nine episode with Patricia Morison were done in November 1948 and delivered to CBS. The producers waited, most likely for Morison to be free of the Broadway play, until February 1950 when CBS buys out IMPPRO’s TV rights. This means CBS had some plan for the future of EDDIE. Someone films the last four episodes sometime between February 1950 and May 1951. And CBS begins to sell the series (at the latest) in May 1951.

Great detective work, Michael! I think we may be closing in on all we may ever know about the series — assuming (as I am) that both the original network and production records are unavailable or non-existent.

Thank goodness for BROADCASTING, the only outlet at the time that was interested, and of which there are still permanent records. And online, too.